Tag Archives: ULI Spring Meeting

This month we sat down with Paul Commito, Vice President of Development, Brandywine Realty Trust and Chair for Mission Advancement (CMA) for ULI Philadelphia. Paul shares his thoughts on what makes ULI special, feedback from the recent Spring Meeting and why people don’t want to drive anymore. How did you get your start in real estate? It’s an interesting business – it’s not like you learn how to be a real estate developer in high school or college. I started on the brokerage side in the 80’s working on condo … Read More

Using insights from ULI Spring Meeting’s housing panel, The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Al Heavens describes how firms aim to design housing that appeal to a wide array of buyers. From Millennials looking to buy for the first time to Baby Boomers who are looking to downsize, its clear that housing aspirations are evolving. While among the millennials, there are strong concerns that buying a house is a risky investment because of the drop in prices, “the appeal of home buying for them has nothing to do with financial considerations,” said Kermit Baker, … Read More

It’s apparent that the city of Philadelphia is undergoing a massive real estate transformation; many tourists and first-timers are pleasantly surprised by the incredible projects in the region. The reinventing of the city was put on a national stage during April’s Spring Meeting in Philadelphia. Leaders from across the globe were impressed by Philadelphia’s unique culture and heritage and how it’s incorporated into the city’s infrastructure and strategy. The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Al Heavens had this realization while monitoring #ULISpring on Twitter during the Spring Meeting: The impressions expressed by the tourists were positive. … Read More

ULI’s Spring Meeting last month featured an array of hot topics in real estate, one of which was transportation trends. Philadelphia, a city not known for being bike or pedestrian friendly, has made great strides in recent years to combat this stigma. In this month alone, Center City was recently named as the spot with the top bike score in the country by Redfin and the city as a whole was named the fourth most walkable in the US. Using insights from ULI Spring Meeting thought leaders like Edward McMahon, a … Read More

Carl Dranoff, president and founder of Dranoff Properties, penned an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer on how democracy and optimism have transformed Philadelphia and will continue to do so for years to come. As over 3,500 members of the Urban Land Institute gather in Philadelphia for the Spring Meeting, Carl reflects on all that’s changed in the twenty years since the conference last met in Philly. “How did Philadelphia redefine itself from a quaint, historic city of neighborhoods, hobbled by industrial abandonment, into America’s first World Heritage City, akin to Paris, … Read More

With the Spring Meeting less than a week away, the entire city of Philadelphia is abuzz with excitement and anticipation. Brickstone Realty‘s Lits Building is joining the celebration by lighting up green. Check out their rooftop digital sign and be sure to tag your pictures and videos using #ULISpring.

Located just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Camden, New Jersey—once the second-poorest and most dangerous city in America—is the focus of an ambitious rebuilding experiment: extensive new public incentives have been created to attract massive private investment. Preliminary results are impressive: so far the effort has generated $2 billion of development in this city of only 77,000 residents. Participants on this full-day bus and walking tour will learn about how these initiatives are spurring private investment, as well as past, present, and future developments. Among those developments are the … Read More

To read the entire piece on Comcast’s new Innovation and Technology Center and its impacts on the region, please visit Urban Land Magazine‘s article, “Philadelphia’s Tower of Tech Power“ In January 2014, Comcast Corporation announced that it would build a second skyscraper at 1800 Arch Street in Philadelphia’s Center City, near the Comcast Center headquarters that it had moved into just six years before. The company that Forbes has named the world’s biggest media conglomerate was driven partly by a need to add space for its growing legions of technology … Read More

ULI Spring Meeting icon sponsors, Brandywine Realty Trust and Liberty Property Trust, present “A Tale of Two Trusts: Changing the West Market Dynamic” Two of the nation’s biggest homegrown and publicly traded REITs—Brandywine Realty Trust and Liberty Property Trust—are investing more than $2 billion in new construction and redevelopment of trophy towers in a five-block area by combining the best of sustainable, walkable, and transit-oriented development techniques. Participants will see Brandywine’s 1919 Market Street, a 29-story contemporary residential and office building transformed as a joint venture with LCOR and CalSTRS and … Read More

Citing Urban Land Institute’s research, Philadelphia Magazine (Philly Mag) re-affirmed that The Navy Yard is “one of the most successful redevelopment projects in U.S. History.” The former military base now hosts over 150 companies with over 12,000 employees, which includes many high profile corporate and regional headquarters. While there is still work to be done (the addition of another 1.3 million square feet, 10,000 jobs, and 1,000 multifamily residential units), it’s clear that this transformation will not only have economic impacts, but will put the Navy Yard on the map as a “hip” … Read More